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Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom – a Malaysian Case Study on Blogging

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Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom – a Malaysian Case Study on Blogging 20th BILETA Conference: Over-Commoditised; Over- Centralised; Over-Observed: the New Digital Legal World? Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom: A Malaysian Case Study on Blogging Towards a Democratic Culture Tang Hang Wu Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore. 1 Introduction Online personal diaries known as web logs or blogs have recently entered into mainstream consciousness.1 The U.S. dictionary, Merriam- Webster picked the word ‘blog’ as the word of the year in 2004 on the basis that it was the most looked up word.2 The advance of technology has enabled diarists to publish their writings on the Internet almost immediately and thereby reaching a worldwide audience. Anyone with access to a computer, from Baghdad to Beijing, from Kenya to Kuala Lumpur, can start a blog. The fact that blogs can be updated instantaneously made them exceedingly popular especially in times of crisis when people trawl the Internet for every scrap of news and information. It is unsurprising that the terror attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City on September 11, 2001 and the recent US led war in Iraq have caused traffic to several blogs to increase dramatically.3 Blogs with a political slant gained further prominence with the recent fiercely contested and deeply polarized 2004 U.S. elections as the candidates and their supporters used the Internet aggressively in their campaigns.4 Besides its effect on domestic US politics and providing an intensely personal coverage of significant events like September 11 and the Iraq 1 war, blogs maintained by people living under less democratic regimes have also started to make an impact.5 In countries where no independent media exists, blogs are beginning to act as an important medium of dissemination of information to the public as well as providing the outside world a glimpse into what actually goes on in these regimes.6 Quite apart from performing the role of spreading vital news and information, blogs are also changing the social conditions in these societies with regard to freedom of speech. At first glance, the contents of most blogs are not particularly profound. In fact, most do seem to be quite banal. However, when all these blogs are linked and networked to each other and bloggers congregate metaphorically in cyberspace and produce a cacophony of voices on the Internet where people comment on the news, remark about each other’s postings, rant about their everyday experience, encourage each other, criticize, flirt, joke etc. something more significant emerges from this din. This digital conversation can properly be characterized as a growing culture of democratization. There are four main parts to this paper. In the first part, I consider whether on a theoretical level blogging changes anything with regard to our understanding of the notion of freedom of expression. Two views are considered. One commentator suggests that a Meikeljohnian democratic approach is of little value when examining free speech in cyberspace. As opposed to this view another writer thinks that digital technologies do alter the social conditions of speech in promoting a democratic culture. In this paper, it is suggested that the latter view offers us a better framework of analysis with regard to digital speech. In the second part of this paper, I will briefly review the laws which restrict freedom of speech in Malaysia namely sedition law, the Internal Security Act which allows detention without trial, law of contempt of court, defamation, laws for licensing of newspapers, the Official Secrets Act, laws against freedom of assembly and freedom of association. I will show how bloggers route around these prohibitive laws by publishing online. In the third part of the paper I will present a case study on how a small group of Malaysian bloggers started a movement which is now a formidable force in disseminating information and promoting a democratic culture. In this case study, I will demonstrate that this development affirms this paper’s vision of how the existence of these digital communities promotes a democratic 2 culture. Also, the case study shows how bloggers manage to route around the laws limiting free speech described in part two of this paper. In my account, I will also trace the key events which bloggers in Malaysia played a vital role as a source of information namely the Iraq war, the SARS outbreak in Asia and the recent earthquake and tsunami disaster in South East Asia. In the final part of my paper, I present some reflections on the salient points which might be valuable in any attempt to use blogs as an instrument for democratization of a society. 2 Blogs and a Culture of Democratization Cynics might point out that there is nothing generally novel about blogging i.e. that it is just another medium of expression which does not fundamentally change the social conditions of the right to free speech. After all, Lawrence Lessig reminds us that cyberspace is not really space at all.7 Governments can (to a certain extent) and sometimes do regulate the Internet.8 From a legal viewpoint, is there anything new with regard to blogging? Andrew Murray9 writes somewhat pessimistically that a Meikeljohnian10 democratic approach is of little value when examining free speech in cyberspace. He notes: [v]ery rarely is democracy encountered in cyberspace. For this reason the democratic approach [to free speech] is rejected as incapable of providing a philosophical foundation for the following analysis of free expression in relation to the developing jurisprudence of cyberspace.’11 But I believe that Murray’s statement is over-inclusive as he does not appear to have considered the significance of a democratic approach to free speech in cyberspace in countries like Iran or Malaysia where the right to speech is restricted. The Malaysian case study presented in this paper demonstrates that Murray’s statement is too broad when he says that the democratic approach is worth little in relation to the issue of free speech. The pertinent issue is not whether democracy is encountered in cyberspace (although this paper contends that it does exist in cyberspace) but how the new technology affects democracy especially in regimes like Iran or Malaysia where the right to free speech is limited. In fact, as I shall show in this case study, the features of the democratic approach in analyzing free speech are particularly relevant with regard to blogs as the medium attempts to fulfill the two elements of the democratic process namely: (i) some blogs seek to equip the electorate with information which might be useful to the 3 public in exercise of its sovereign power and (ii) by constantly posing sharp questions and raising issues not touched by mainstream media, blogs hold public officials accountable to the general public. It is suggested that the Internet does introduce a new element to our understanding of the concept of freedom of expression. Professor Jack Balkin offers us a more persuasive framework of analysis with regard to digital speech. In a recent essay, he exhorts us not to look at the novelty but at the salience of the technology.12 Balkin’s thesis is that the salience of digital technologies ‘highlight the cultural and participatory features of freedom of expression’13 enabling more people to take part in the spread of ideas and the dissemination of information. In doing so, the Internet does alter the social conditions of speech in promoting a democratic culture. According to Balkin the concept of a democratic culture brings into sharp focus the following points of free speech: ‘Freedom is participation. Freedom is distribution. Freedom is interaction. Freedom is the ability to influence and be influenced. Freedom is the ability to change others and to be changed as well.’14 With regard to the mass media, he identifies how the Internet poses two challenges to the media that he calls routing around and glomming on.15 The former means that the Internet offers ordinary citizens the potential of reaching an audience directly without going through a gatekeeper or an intermediary whereas the latter concept means the Internet enables people to appropriate and to utilize news in the mainstream media as a platform for criticism, production and construction. Blogs by its very nature are about democratic participation, interaction and an exchange of ideas and information. The Balkin thesis is even more compelling in a country like Malaysia where there are laws limiting the right of free speech. By publishing online, bloggers not only route around prohibitive financial hurdles to media production but also overcome restrictive licensing and publication laws.16 Further, bloggers who link their blogs with each other and engage their readers and other bloggers in lively discussions17 are (whether consciously or unconsciously) routing around laws against freedom of assembly. In the digital age, ideas, information and agendas need not be exchanged through physical congregations but could be done in cyberspace. This essay is therefore essentially an affirmation of Balkin’s thesis via a 4 Malaysian case study on the activities of bloggers who are now a formidable force in promoting a democratic culture in Malaysia despite the existence of laws which restrict speech in the country. Whether they will transform the landscape of free speech is too early to tell. This story is a continuing one. No one knows how it will all end and what would eventually come out of this blogging movement. In this paper I tell the story, thus far. 3 A Brief Overview of Malaysian Laws Limiting Free Speech In Malaysia, the right to freedom of speech is enshrined in Article 10 of the Constitution.18 Nevertheless, this right is immediately qualified in the Constitution whereby it is expressly stated that Parliament may by law impose the necessary restrictions to the right of free speech.
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